


Tales of Halloween: Vol. 3

by bluefries



Series: Tales of Halloween [3]
Category: Dreamcatcher (Korea Band), 드림캐쳐 | Dreamcatcher
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Gen, Halloween, Magic, Prompt Based, Science, this was meant to be creepier but i failed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-27 00:09:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21109460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluefries/pseuds/bluefries
Summary: Title:Tastes Like PerfectionSummary:All Siyeon wants is to achieve perfection. Simple.





	Tales of Halloween: Vol. 3

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt that inspired this fic was basically, "Siyeon, Grim Reaper, Future".  
Hope you enjoy ~

“How about we talk more about this in my lab, I could even show you some samples to give you a better idea of the whole thing.” Siyeon makes sure her words don’t come off too eager lest she chase the lady away.

“Is that really okay?” The lady, Kim Minji a journalist and writer for the city’s most prominent newspaper, asks with a bit of hesitation. “I mean, aren’t you really private about your research?”

Siyeon brings her hand to cover her mouth as she chuckles in a manner she hopes doesn’t make her seem conceited. “It’s my duty as a scientist and researcher to share my findings with the world to further improve it. Don’t you think so?”

“I guess so. Okay then, I hope this is an exclusive. No going to other outlets until I’ve published my article. Promise?”

Siyeon smiles. “Promise.”

They decide to split the dinner bill and leave the restaurant with Siyeon’s lab as their next destination. As they settle into the autonomous taxi and Siyeon’s done inputting her address, she turns to give Minji a reassuring smile.

“Thanks again for this, it’ll really help me get my name out there in the journalism world,” Minji says gratefully.

“It’s no problem, trust me.” Siyeon takes Minji’s right hand into her own and she carefully strokes the back with her thumb. Her eyes drift down to their joined hands and she feels the corners of her mouth curve upwards as she fixates on Minji pale smooth skin.

“You have prominent veins,” Siyeon comments, mostly to herself but Minji hears her.

“Yeah, they used to call me Vein Goddess back in school. It’s embarrassing.” Minji laughs at the memory while Siyeon can’t seem to stop staring at the bulging veins, filled with blood under delicate layers of skin.

“Nothing to be embarrassed about.” Siyeon finally breaks her gaze away from Minji’s hand and faces Minji. Minji’s laugh dies off when faced with Siyeon’s gaze. Siyeon’s smile only widens.

“You have the perfect hand.”

*-*-*

_“I don’t think that’s entirely possible, no matter how much you incorporate aspects of science and high magic.”_

_Siyeon rolls her eyes for the umpteenth time that day as she rubs her temples with her fingers hoping to get rid of her growing migraine._

_“Let’s deal with the basics first, how would you even start the whole thing? It’s more complex than one would-”_

_“Imagine, yes, yes, it’s all impossible. Advancements in technology haven’t reached that far, blah, blah, blah,” Siyeon scoffs as she leans back in her chair and levels the two sister high witches, Yoohyeon and Yoobin, with a bored expression. “I’ve heard all that from people who weren’t willing to open their minds to new possibilities. We’re in the twenty-second century for Pete’s sake, we should be able to do this much.” Siyeon throws her hands in exasperation._

_“I get what you’re saying, Siyeon, I do,” Yoohyeon starts cautiously, “But it’s also bordering unethical and taboo, especially for us. The Mage Council won’t allow it.”_

_Siyeon snorts, holding back a laugh. “The same Mage Council that still thinks blood magic is okay. Unethical my foot. Give me five minutes with the Council and I’ll convince them why knowing the date of your death is just as important as learning how to power a light source.”_

_Yoobin and Yoohyeon glance at each other before Yoobin sighs in what seems like defeat._

_“Five minutes, that’s as much as you need right?” Yoobin gives Siyeon a calculating expression that Siyeon almost laughs at since it’s not a proper meeting with the two sisters unless Yoobin’s suspicious of her._

_“Even less would be enough to make my point.” Siyeon reclines in her chair once more with a look of triumph on her face._

*-*-*

Siyeon feels giddy as she taps her foot along to the beat of some popular song she doesn’t know the name of because the beat is helping her immensely. It’s helping her avoid the shadows lurking in the corner of her eye. Shadows that no matter how much she strains to look at she can never quite get a full glimpse of. Shadows that irritate her eyes so much so that she always has the urge to just claw them out just so that she doesn’t have to see them. Shadows that can only be silence by mindless music, Siyeon guesses.

She puts on her lab coat as she sways her body to the beat. Her dancing goes on for a bit before the song ends and her lab is filled with momentary silence before the next song comes on shuffle.

The silence is long enough to let the muffled wailing seep through Siyeon’s giddiness.

“Hmm,” Siyeon hums as she slowly makes her way to the cold metal operating table that was gifted to her by one of her former colleagues at the Science Institute where she used to work. Siyeon stops at the table and turns her gaze downwards on to her new subject as she snaps on her surgical gloves.

“I’m just going to give you first-hand experience at what I do here, isn’t that great Minji?” Siyeon chuckles at Minji squirming to get out of her restraints. The tears streaking down the corners of her eyes coupled with the look of pure unadulterated fear and panic fill Siyeon with the usual sense of joy when she does this.

“Let’s just be calm, okay?” Siyeon tests out the syringe filled with a heavy dose of anaesthesia before filling it into the IV drip running into Minji’s vein. As Minji begins to settle down Siyeon feels the tell-tale itch at the back of her head like something scratching the back of her skull with a sharp knife.

_Scratch. Scratch. Scratch._

Siyeon sighs as she pats the back of her head out of pure instinct in hopes to get rid of the irritating feeling. A feeling she knows won’t go away until she’s finished what she started months ago.

Yes, she needs to finish soon, her time is running out.

“Now,” Siyeon says to an unconscious Minji. “Let’s get you that first-hand experience I promised.”

*-*-*

_“So all the most vital thing we need to contact it is a pair of witches?” Siyeon asks curiously as she confirms that they have all the other elements required._

_Yoohyeon nods morbidly. “Yes, but finding a pair of strongly bonded witches will be difficult. Not everyone’s open to the idea of sacrificing themselves for something that has a high chance of failing.” Yoobin nods in agreement as she grinds the dry herbs together before sprinkling them onto the intricate summoning circle drawn on Siyeon’s white lab floor._

_Siyeon hums in agreement, arms crossed as she stares at the two sisters opposite her on the other side of the circle. She watches the two move in sync as they set up the circle in preparation for when they do finally get a pair of willing witches._

_Her right eye suddenly feels itchy as she keeps staring at the two. Then it dawns on her like some sort of wild epiphany._

_“Let’s just try our luck.” The two give her quizzical looks before Siyeon further elaborates. “Just start the incantation, who knows, maybe the Grim Reaper’s feeling a bit kind today and might stop by for a visit.”_

_Yoobin glares at her as she rises from her crouched position and stalks over to Siyeon. “You think this is some sort of joke? An incomplete incantation could prove fatal to our lives. Do you want to die?”_

_“Wouldn’t that get us closer to our goal? I mean death means we get to meet the Grim Reaper and-” Siyeon’s oddly cheerful voice is cut off as Yoobin grabs her collar and fixes her with a glare of glowing blue eyes._

_“You really think this is a game, that the Grim Reaper will just be okay with everything and grant us our wish, like some sort of genie? Are you an idiot?” Siyeon maintain her cheerful smile amidst all of Yoobin’s shouting._

_“Yoobin, calm down. Let’s just try brainstorming for a better solution. Come on, let her go,” Yoohyeon’s voice is calm but stern as she also directs Siyeon with a glare and tries to pry Yoobin’s hands off of Siyeon’s collar._

_Perfect._

_“I’m not an idiot, if anything, I’m probably the smartest in the room.” Siyeon doesn’t give the two time to react to her comment before she plunges the dagger that she had stealthily picked from Yoobin’s sheath into Yoobin’s throat. She pulls it out with a sickening squelch and a spray of blood that decorates her hand. Yoobin let’s go off her collar to try and stop the bleeding with her hands as she sinks to the floor. Gurgling sounds are all that fill the room as Yoobin chokes on her own blood._

_“Siyeon! What-” Siyeon stops Yoohyeon in her tracks as she swipes the dagger fast enough across Yoohyeon’s throat further getting more blood on her face and her white lab coat. Yoohyeon follows Yoobin in the same fashion onto the ground._

_“I’m just doing what needs to be done,” Siyeon drawls as she tosses the bloody dagger to the side and it lands with a resounding sound that echoes in the lab distracting from the sounds of the two witches dying for a few seconds._

_Siyeon walks over to Yoobin, who’s lost most of her strength and is on the brink of death, and drags her body to the circle. She does the same for Yoohyeon and as she’s about to step out of the circle she feels a weak hand grab her ankle._

_“I…c..c..cur…curse…y..y..ou…t..o…a…a…a,” Yoohyeon chokes out as blood seeps onto the circle. Siyeon humours her and crouches and leans in with her ear as if trying to hear her better._

_“What’s that? I can’t hear you that well. You might need to be a bit louder.”_

_“A…b..b..ru..ta…l…d…ea..th. Y…ou..’ll…d.i…e….horribly.” Yoohyeon gasps as she coughs out blood and turns her head towards Yoobin who’s already passed._

_Siyeon looks at her with amusement. “I can only hope it will be horribly beautiful.” As Yoohyeon breathes her last, Siyeon rises and steps out of the circle towards the spell book that lie open on the floor._

_“Now, with both of your blood, I can finally have that date with the Grim Reaper I’ve been dreaming off since I was a child.”_

*-*-*

There was blood everywhere. On the table, on the floor, on her new lab coat that she just got, on the gloves and now on her face as she rubs her cheek in thought.

The procedure didn’t go as well as she’d hoped. She’d tried it out on Minji’s left hand first hence all the blood once she cut prematurely into an artery. But once she figured everything out she now has a perfect right hand in an ice box waiting for its next destination.

A chill feels the room as she takes off her gloves and reaches out for her favourite scalpel.

“You’re a little bit early, aren’t you?” Siyeon glances over her shoulder at the dark figure hovering menacingly behind her. She turns back to Minji, who’s still unconscious and unaware of the whole situation unfolding. “Unless you really wanted to watch me work one last time, I will warn you, I’m kind of messy these days so I doubt you’ll enjoy watching me that much.” With that, Siyeon slowly slits Minji’s throat and watches in fascination as the blood slowly pours out onto her hand and scalpel that she hasn’t removed from Minji’s throat.

Once satisfied, she turns to face the figure and opens her arms as if welcoming them for a hug. “What? No, hello? After all we’ve been through?” The figure steps forward and the darkness seeps off of them like smoke to reveal a half a young woman’s face, with a stretched out half smile, and half a skull.

“I have no time for your games.” Siyeon flinches at the cold voice before shrugging and moving to collect the ice box. As she passes by the Reaper, she grabs and intertwines their hands, hers bloody and the Reaper’s a deathly white.

“Well then, follow me, the final act is about to begin.” Siyeon drags the Reaper towards the final room of her lab.

Her studio.

*-*-*

_Siyeon lets out a puff of air in slight exhaustion as she rises from the floor beside the summoning circle. She looks at her handiwork consisting of Yoohyeon’s and Yoobin’s bodies lying side by side in the circle with their blood used to make extra symbols to complete the circle._

_With the spell book in her right hand, she holds the silver chalice filled with the two sisters’ blood in her other hand and starts the incantation, hoping for the best._

_After a few minutes of chanting, she looks all around her waiting for something, anything, that would tell her the ritual worked. She slowly puts down the chalice and the spell book on a nearby table when she notices black smoke surrounding the summoning circle._

_The lights flicker and a chill circles and tightens around her neck making it hard to breathe. Her bloody hands claw at her neck desperately to try and get rid of the constriction and get some air back into her lungs._

_“How dare you summon me.” A deep cold voice, that Siyeon swears shook the room for a split second, speaks. A dark figure cloaked in endless darkness rises from the smoke and slowly gravitates towards Siyeon. Unable to move from her position, probably out of fear or the figure’s doing, she tries to focus on breathing which was getting harder as time went by._

_“Please…hear…me…out,” Siyeon chokes out. The figure stops directly in front of her and she finds her staring into nothing but an endless abyss of darkness. No face, just nothingness._

_The figure raises what she assumes is its arm and holds it out as if waiting for something. Seconds later, a shiny menacing scythe materialises and that’s all the confirmation Siyeon needs that she the ritual was indeed successful._

_She decides to try her luck, it’s not like she has anything to lose at this point. “It’s…not…my…time…yet…you..c...can’t...take…my…soul…now. Pl….ease…h…e...ar…me…out.” Even though the figure has nothing to indicate facial expression, Siyeon thinks it would be sporting a curious look._

_Her lungs finally get some much needed oxygen when she feels the constriction around her throat disappear causing her to promptly fall to her knees in a choking mess, eyes watering as she heavily inhaled all the air she could._

_She coughs a few more times before she looks up through watered eyes to face the figure and with as much conviction and confidence as she can muster she says, “Let’s make a deal.”_

_“What makes you think you have anything worthwhile to offer to me other than your soul?” The voice, a soft voice which speaks words with careful concentration, asks._

_“Perfection,” Siyeon whispers out with a steely expression._

_At her words, the figure lowers itself into a crouch in front of Siyeon as slowly, the abyss that was its face peels away to reveal a face, or rather half a face._

_Siyeon gulps, her confidence wavering slightly, as she takes in its features. The pale white skin from the right side of its head is taut and stretched out in a sickly manner to reveal high cheekbones and hollow cheeks. The left side is a cracked skull with blood dripping from its eye socket. Its right eye is sunken and blood red and its lips, on the right side, are pulled upwards in a grotesque mimicry of a smile._

_Siyeon looks off to the side when she realizes she’s going to throw up if she keeps staring at the Reaper’s face. She, however, doesn’t lose her resolve. She summoned it for a reason, she killed two witches to get it here._

_She’s risked everything to do this, she’s not backing down. With a deep breath, she faces the Reaper and swallows down the wave of nausea that sweeps through her and musters up all the confidence she had from before._

_“I’ll give you the most perfect souls, if you help me out.”_

*-*-*

“Just give me a few moments to set up this little beauty,” Siyeon states as she raises and gives the ice box with Minji’s hand a slight shake, “And we can get to the good stuff, okay?”

The Reaper doesn’t respond but instead walks past Siyeon into her studio, where she put into practice her deal. Siyeon shrugs at the Reaper’s lack of response, something she got used to over the months of their interactions.

Siyeon approaches a tall glass box that contains her almost finished masterpiece. Feeling herself smile she taps on the glass box to reveal a translucent holographic keypad which she keys in a passcode that disintegrates the glass box, leaving her with her masterpiece on a pedestal.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Siyeon holds out her arms wide as she turns to face the Reaper standing ominously at the door. “All our combined efforts of hard work have birthed this amazing piece of work.” The Reaper, as expected doesn’t reply to Siyeon’s bubbling enthusiasm but instead walks towards Siyeon and her masterpiece.

“You could at least say something, this is a glorious moment for us both,” Siyeon huffs as she watches the Reaper circle her work in what Siyeon hopes is wonder and appreciation. She didn’t go through all the trouble for the Reaper to not like her work. That just wouldn’t do.

“Anyway, let me add the hand and we can get ready for the end.” Siyeon picks up a laser device the size of a regular pencil, which invented for this very purpose, from the nearby table and places it behind her ear. She then takes out the hand from the ice box, making sure to avoid any sudden movements that would ruin everything.

With bated breath, she manoeuvres Minji’s severed right hand towards her work and uses the laser to join it.

“Perfect,” Siyeon whispers as she steps back to take it all in, a sense of pride develops within her. She’s done it, she’s created perfection. A perfect body.

“Not yet.” The cold voice takes Siyeon away from her celebratory thoughts reminding her she’s not alone in the room and indeed, she’s not done yet.

*-*-*

_“It’s simple, I more or less will give you a collection of souls that will be deemed perfect by both you and me.” Siyeon points back and forth between her and the Reaper._

_The two are sitting on opposite ends of Siyeon’s medical table trying to come up with an agreement for the deal._

_When the Reaper doesn’t reply, Siyeon continues. “I’ll scout out potential subjects and when I find them you tell me when they’re set to die.” Siyeon pauses to glance warily at the Reaper’s unchanging expression to decide if she’s doing well or she’s just wasting time and the Reaper is already thinking of how to kill her. She’s sighs and convinces herself to keep talking._

_“If it’s not yet their time…you’ll just push forward their death date to make my work easier. Once I’ve completed the perfect being, you’ll get the chance to devour a collection of souls suited to your tastes, pure perfection. I can already imagine it,” Siyeon leans back in her chair and stares at her dull grey ceiling already imagining her masterpiece._

_“However, I don’t devour souls, I just help them crossover to their destination in the afterlife,” the Reaper says in an eerie calm voice that cause a chill to run down Siyeon’s entire being._

_Siyeon takes in a deep breath before leaning forward and folding her arms on the cold table. “That’s not entirely true, now is it? My friends, the two witches, before their…unfortunate deaths, informed me of your irregular soul count.” Siyeon smirks as the Reaper tilts its head slightly._

_“For instance, you’re meant to deliver ten souls but somehow through some quote unquote irregularities, you deliver eight. No one asks because you give the best explanations on lost souls and all that.”_

_“And? You think you can threaten me with such?”_

_“Kind of but not really, but.” Siyeon stands and walks over to the Grim Reaper and stands behind it. “I know someone who can.” She gently but cautiously holds the Reaper’s shoulders, ignoring the bony feel she gets from them, and bends forward so that she can comfortably whisper in its ear._

_Once she’s done she stands upright with a smile knowing she’s won. She doesn’t need to see the Reaper’s face to figure it out, all it took was the sudden stillness that enveloped the Reaper and she just knew._

_“I’m guessing we have a deal.”_

*-*-*

“Thank you,” Siyeon says as she stands beside her masterpiece and faces the Reaper with a smile etched on her face. “You helped give my life proper meaning by letting me accomplish my dream.”

“You’re welcome.” Siyeon is only a tiny bit surprised she got a reply but she guesses it’s a joyous occasion for the Reaper as well.

She lays her right hand over her chest and wonders whether the Reaper not only sees a perfect being but a collection of glowing perfect souls in one being.

She lays her left hand over her right.

Deep breaths. In and out, just like she’d practiced when she was younger.

“I hope we’ll see each other soon. Who knows, we might work together again.” Siyeon says as she applies pressure onto her chest.

“Maybe,” the Reaper says as it moves forward and stops directly in front of Siyeon and her masterpiece.

“I’d like to work with you again, soon.” Siyeon rambles, smile still present on her face. “Now, finish what we both started, O Grim Reaper.” With that, she tears her hand into her chest and with her last semblance of life she rips out her heart. She sucks in a deep breath as she takes in the final view of the Grim Reaper’s grotesque face before finally everything goes dark.

The Grim Reaper silently takes the bloody heart out of Siyeon’s limp hand and turns to the masterpiece to finish their deal.

A perfectly flawed heart for a perfect being to give rise to a perfect collection of souls.

“It is done.”


End file.
